


A Summer by the Sea

by the-ghost-and-his-soprano (thejadedidealist)



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: (not between main characters), Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Comfort, Coming of Age, F/M, Family, Pining, Teenage AU, Trauma, childhood AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-08-04 04:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16340189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejadedidealist/pseuds/the-ghost-and-his-soprano
Summary: After a life-threatening incident, nineteen-year-old Erik manages to escape from the circus and run to a sleepy coastal town in the north of France, which just happens to be the summer home of the noble De Chagny family, a Swedish violinist, and his daughter. Unlikely childhood friends Philippe, Raoul, and Christine will be forever changed by the discovery of this badly beaten young man and his many secrets.





	1. The Master

            Erik blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he sat up, the straw lining the floor of his cage rustling beneath him. Something had woken him—a sound. He adjusted the canvas sack over his head to better see out the eyeholes, and found looming above him a man. Not just any man, he realized, but the leader of the circus. A man Erik only knew—with his very limited understanding of Romani—as “the master".

            It was not unusual for the master to visit Erik’s cage alone. He seemed to enjoy toying with Erik—pulling the chain attached to the collar around his neck until he was pinned against the bars gasping for air, or stealing his mask while he slept and teasing him with it, dancing just out of reach. But this time, the master was _inside_ the cage. No one—except those who had wrestled Erik through the door upon arrival—had ever been _inside_ with him.

            “What you are wanting?” Erik asked warily in broken Romani. The master said nothing, only beckoned him forward. Erik hesitated, casting a glance over his surroundings. It must have been late, as the camp was all but abandoned. Only a few lamps and the dying embers of cooking fires lit the area, which was empty of people. No witnesses, Erik noted.

            The master gestured again, impatiently, and this time Erik climbed to his feet and approached. Up close, Erik noticed that he was a few inches shorter than the master, though he must have been less than a third of the man’s age. That was notable. Erik towered over most of the other members of the circus, but the master was an exception. Tall and solidly built, Erik heard that he had once done a strong man routine before buying out the circus from the last master. The man had aged and withered since then, of course, but he was still an intimidating presence in the small, confined area of Erik’s already tight cage.

            Erik took two steps forward and stopped short. The master stood with his back against the door, and this close, Erik could see that he had locked it behind him. A queasy feeling rose up in his stomach, and he paused before going any closer.

            “What are you wanting?” he repeated. Something was wrong.

            There was a blur of movement, and Erik’s suspicions were confirmed when he felt a fist connect with his face.

            Erik reeled, searching for a handhold and finding only the bars of his cage, which clanged against his skull as he fell backwards and into the ground. Stars blinked across his vision as the pain rang through his head, and for a moment he was blinded. When once again he could see, the master’s face was inches from his own, spitting hushed strings of rapid-fire Romani.

            Head still ringing, Erik scrambled backwards as far as he could before the bars dug into his back.

            “What you are wanting? What you are wanting?” he asked frantically, afraid and confused and dizzy with pain. The master—upon noticing that his rant had fallen on uncomprehending ears—sighed to himself disgustedly, then grabbed Erik by the hair and slammed his head backwards into the steel bars.

            More stars exploded behind Erik’s eyes, and as he slumped downward he curled his legs into his chest, protecting his stomach and trying to become a smaller target. He had learned in his time here that if he simply took the beatings rather than fighting back, the game lost its fun, and the abusers would eventually leave him alone. This time, however, that did not seem to be the case. Even as Erik curled his arms protectively over his head, he could see the master coming at him again through the slits in his canvas mask.

            The man was unbuckling his belt.

            Erik froze at that sight. A sudden understanding washed over him, and with it, terror. Erik struggled to get his legs under him, but the master grabbed at his feet. Erik cried out at a pop in his ankle as the master started to drag him closer and yank on the frayed legs of his pants. Erik got a few kicks in with his good foot—the master snarling at him all the while in Romani—before suddenly his legs were pinned underneath the man’s massive knee, and his trousers began to inch down his hips.

             And then they got stuck on the jutting bones of his pelvis. Never had Erik been more thankful for his skeletal frame. In the moment it took the master to reach for Erik’s waistband, Erik managed to grab the master’s own discarded belt, loop it, and slip it over the man’s head.

            Immediately, the master released Erik’s trousers, hands clawing at the belt around his neck. But Erik’s slim fingers were nimble, and he managed to buckle it into place around the man’s throat. With what would have been a roar, had his windpipe not been cut off, the master launched to his feet, backing into the opposite bars as he attempted to undo Erik’s handiwork. In the meantime, Erik scrambled to his feet and dove for the door.

            Locked.

            It was locked. The master had locked it behind him, and the key was undoubtedly in his possession. Erik had to get it. He looked over toward the struggling form of the master, and was surprised to see that the man had managed to work the buckle around to the front of his neck, and was now fumbling with the clasp. Any second, he could free himself and finish what he started. Or worse.

            After only a moment’s hesitation, Erik leapt onto him. He wrapped his long arms around the man’s neck, grabbing the end of the belt and _pulling_. He felt the leather tighten, heard a strangled squawk from the master as his airway narrowed even further. And then, he was rammed into the bars of the cage as the master threw himself backwards.

            There was a crunch, and Erik’s chest exploded in pain far worse than the blows to his head had been. For a moment, he was breathless, and when he finally did manage to breathe, his chest screamed with the movement. Each gasping breath sent a new wave of pain coursing through his ribcage, and Erik cried out in agony.

            But he did not let go. He couldn’t, really; the master’s body still crushed him to the bars. So, Erik tightened his grip, gritting his teeth through the pain and praying he could outlast his attacker. The man was making terrible choking noises, and for the first time Erik had hope for victory, even though he himself could barely breathe through the pain in his ribs. Then suddenly, the master lurched away from the bars, Erik riding his back like one of the monkeys that travelled with the caravan. Erik braced himself for another collision with the bars, but it didn’t come. Instead, the master fell forwards, collapsing onto his knees, still clutching weakly at the belt with one hand.

            This was it. A few more minutes—seconds, maybe, and he would go down. And then Erik would be…what? Free? Certainly not safe, not if he killed this man. No, the caravan would come after him, just like they had before. And all he had done that time was escape. Now, he was a murderer.

            And then Erik’s thoughts evaporated as a new pain—sharp and cold—buried itself into his side. His grip on the master’s back slackened, and in what felt like slow motion, he fell backwards into the hay. As he thudded to the ground, he got a glimpse of what had inflicted the wound.

            A knife.

            It was small, just a pocket knife, but all three inches of it were buried in Erik’s side, just above his hip. Instinctively he brought his hands to the site, but when he brushed the handle he felt pain so white hot and blinding that he couldn’t even cry out. The noise that erupted was closer to the strangled sounds escaping the master. But the master was not making those noises anymore. Erik craned his neck at that realization, a desperate hope rising in him that the man was finally perhaps defeated.

            But Erik did not see the collapsed form of the master. Instead, through the narrow slits in the mask, he saw the gleam of the belt buckle as it sailed through the bars and out of reach. And then he saw the master. The giant had gotten back to his feet, and his face was blood red as he struggled to catch his breath. The snarl on his face was animal—his mouthed foamed with spittle and blood where Erik’s kicks must have connected, and the look in his eyes was more feral than anything Erik had ever seen.

            The master was free. And he was angry.

            “You…” he gasped in accented French, “ _die.”_

            And then he lunged.


	2. The Runaway

            Such a stark reversal of roles would have been comical, if it was not Erik’s life at stake. While just moments ago he had been the one strangling the master, now the master was strangling him. The man had Erik by the throat, one meaty hand large enough to encircle his entire neck. Erik was barely touching the ground, but hardly noticed it over the pain in his ribs and his hip. Weakly, he struggled, but he could feel himself fading much faster than the master had. He was battered and malnourished, and so scrawny that there was nothing but skin and bones to resist the crushing force of that monstrous hand.

            It was that same force that kept Erik from screaming as, with his last bit of strength, he yanked the knife from his side and swung it upward across the master’s throat.

            For a moment, the master’s grip tightened, and Erik worried that he had missed. And then the red began to flow. The hand on Erik’s throat slackened, and suddenly he was falling, collapsing back into the hay as he took a much-needed gasp of air. A look of shock was plastered on the master’s face as he brought his hands to his throat in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. In a moment the man’s entire shirtfront was solid red. His eyes were wild as he clutched at his wound, letting out horrible gurgling sounds that should have been screams. Erik looked on in horror as, one by one, those clutching hands went slack, and the massive body tipped to the side. It did not move again. 

            Erik would have sobbed with relief, had his aching ribs not prevented him from doing so. It was all he could do to take a shaking breath. He was covered in blood, both the master’s and his own, his mask was gone, and it seemed that every part of him that wasn’t bleeding was either broken or bruised. But he was alive. 

            He could not revel in that fact for long, however. He had no way of knowing how near it was to dawn, and every moment he waited was a moment the camp could come to life around him. If anyone stumbled upon this scene, Erik knew without a doubt that he was done for. The rapidly bleeding wound in his side only added to the urgency. A helpless sob welled up in him at the thought of standing, of moving his broken, aching body, but he bit back the sound as— slowly, painfully—he lifted himself to his feet.

            Erik first made his way over to the master’s lifeless form. A trickle of blood still oozed from his throat, and for the first time, Erik seemed to understand what he had done. _Murder…_

            He could not hold back the bile at this realization. With a retch that wracked his whole body, he leaned over and was sick all over the hay-lined floor. Shaking, he tried to remind himself that his actions had been in self-defense. If he hadn’t killed the man…he vomited again at the thought.

            When he was done retching, he turned his attention to the man’s pockets, avoiding the gore as much as possible. After a minute of searching, Erik found the man’s ring of keys. The key to his collar was easy to spot. It was small and dark, just like the lock and the iron encircling his neck. The chain had been taken off at the end of the day, as usual, to allow him to sleep. But even unanchored, Erik knew the weight of it would soon become a hinderance if he left it in place.

            With an excruciating bit of contortion, Erik managed to find the keyhole behind his head, and the heavy metal fell away with a clang. He winced at the sound and scanned the camp for any signs of movement. Nothing. Breathing out a painful sigh of relief, Erik fumbled once again with the key ring, this time searching for the key to his cage.

            This was more of a struggle. It looked just like every other key to every other wagon, and the master had a copy of them all. With every second that passed, Erik’s pain dulled, but his paranoia sharpened. Was that dawn creeping across the horizon, or the glow of some distant city lights? Was that the sound of whispers, or the rustling of the wind?

            Finally, the lock sprung open, and Erik could have cried with relief. He wasted no time rising to his feet and limping gingerly down the stairs. His ankle screamed with every step, but desperation outweighed discomfort, and he pressed on. The camp was difficult to maneuver. Wagons and carts and tents and firepits were scattered haphazardly across the space, with barely enough room to walk between them. The lack of light did not help, but Erik was grateful for the darkness. It meant less chance of discovery.

            He was halfway through the camp when he rounded the edge of a wagon and stopped dead. One of the fires was burning. Really burning, not simply smoldering like all the rest. And across the fire pit, gazing directly at him with a poker in her hand, was a teenage girl.

            Erik recognized her. Mireya. Some performer’s daughter with no particular talent to exploit, meaning she was often commissioned as a barker to drum up crowds in the more lucrative towns. She had been posted outside Erik’s wagon numerous times, and had even taken to talking to him when business was slow. Not a friend, exactly, but the only person in this place to treat him anything like a human.

            “Erik?” she whispered cautiously, elongating the last syllable, Er- _eek._ Her dark eyes were wide with surprise as they met Erik’s’ across the blaze. He could do nothing but stand there paralyzed as she took a step back, and then another.

            “How did you…What have you done?” she asked in heavily accented French, her voice tinged with horror as she took in the blood staining his frayed clothing. Erik fumbled for a response, but he didn’t have time to form the words. Before he could take his next aching breath, Mireya turned and ran.

            “Mireya, wait! Please!” he called hoarsely after her. But the girl was fast and nimble— even if it was not enough to be a tumbler or a gymnast—and she had disappeared between the tents in an instant. A moment later, he heard voices shouting from behind him, and he didn’t have to look to know that his crimes had been discovered. He had to get out of here. Fast.

            But Erik did not know what town they were in. He only had a vague idea of what _country_ they were in. He had no way of knowing which direction was doom and which direction was safety—if such a thing even existed. All he could do was pick a direction and bolt. So he did.

            As the clamor began to spread throughout the camp, Erik turned to his left and began to run. His ankle screamed as he leapt over fire pits and veered around corners, but he could not stop. He just kept running, towards the edge of camp, towards the woods, towards whatever waited beyond them. He simply ran. And he did not look back.

* * *

 

             A little farther, Erik told himself. All he had to do was make it a little bit farther. It was a lie of course, he knew it even as the thought crossed his mind. But he also knew that, without some way of convincing himself—without some _hope—_ exhaustion and pain would overtake him.

            They both lurked just beneath his awareness, shoved away by adrenaline and fear and necessity. The aching in his ribs, the throbbing of his hip, the weakness in his malnourished body, all of it faded under the black fog of his panic. The only one that did make itself known through the veil was his ankle, which screamed with every limping step. But he could not stop. He had to go farther, farther, just a little bit farther. Put as much distance between him and the camp as possible.

            He slowed his pace for a moment to risk a look behind, but between the rain and the darkness, he could not discern any figures in pursuit. That meant nothing though, he knew. He thought he had been safe last time, only for them to snatch him back up and lock him in a cage.

            Just as he turned back around, he saw the crack in the stony ground. It was too late to stop himself. With a shout, he tumbled to the ground as his foot caught against the rocky lip of the crevice, screaming in pain as his crackling ribs collided with the earth. All he could do for a long moment was lie there and gasp for a breath that hurt to take in. And then before he could catch his breath, before he could let himself feel the pain or the weakness or the soothing cool of the rain on his bruises, he stood, and started to run once more.

            He fell again not half a step later. His ankle, the one the master had hurt when he’d dragged Erik by his feet, simply gave out underneath him with a horrible pain that left Erik hissing through his teeth. He pushed up on bony elbows and turned to glance at the joint. His stomach turned. Broken. Definitely broken. Whatever it had been before—sprained, likely—he had at least been able to bear weight. But as he tested it now with merely the weight of his leg, a blinding pain shot through him, and he knew there would be no more running tonight.

            Now, the other pains did begin to poke through, all clamoring for his attention like needy children. Erik tried once more to shut them out, but it seemed the floodgates had opened, and every ounce of pain and exhaustion he had managed to repress came surging up at once. His breath caught in his aching chest at the sensation.

            Just as he feared, the prospect of continuing was torturous after the moment of rest the injured ankle had forced upon him. But here, he was utterly exposed. To the biting wind, to the chilling rain, to any shadows on the horizon who sought to reclaim him…

            At the very least, he needed to find shelter. He went to stand, only for that blasted ankle to remind him of the utter hopelessness of the situation in which he found himself. He slammed a fist into the ground with a grunt of frustration, only to regret it as the stone sliced the meat of his hand. And then the tears began to fall.

            He hardly noticed them at first, with the rain, but soon they made hot trails along his cheeks, where the rain was cool. He was quite surprised to have the ability to cry—it had been so long since the last time, he had wondered if he’d not grown immune. It had been one more thing to separate him from the rest of the human race, to which the world seemed so desperate to remind Erik he didn’t belong. He’d withstood the beatings and the stares and the cruel exploitation without tears, but now, after a taste of freedom, now they returned.

            Freedom. Was that it? Was hope why he cried? The last time he had cried had been the day the master’s cronies sniffed him out in that small German town—another day in which he had tasted freedom. Perhaps it was his punishment, then, for seeking to be free in this world to which he so clearly did not belong. He was an abomination after all. Maybe he was a thing meant to be contained.

            And yet this time, he had not wanted to escape. He had not wanted anything but to be left alone, to be spared, to be _alive_. Surely he could not be punished for that?

            Erik sat up onto his knees. It was difficult, to keep his ankle off the ground and still make his way forward, but after a moment of experimentation he was able to find a way. And so Erik managed to inch forward, crawling on his hands and knees. Not pointed towards anything in particular, just away, away from those terrible people in that terrible camp. And hopefully, closer to shelter.


	3. The Cliffs

            The sun shone brightly on the chalky cliffs, but a stubborn chill remained in the damp seaside air. The rain from the night before had chased off the summer heat, and for once the stone was cool beneath Christine’s bare feet. It was a refreshing sensation, though the stirring breeze sent her hair into wild tangles.

            Raoul and Philippe lingered somewhere along the path behind her, probably examining some sort of crab carcass or whatever it was that those boys found interesting. Usually, the three of them would have gone straight to the beach to fight off the heat, but today the chill in the air allowed them to explore other regions, like this stony ridge that was normally baked by the sun.

            Below, the water beat mercilessly at the cliffsides, stirred up by the wind and the rain into cacophonous crashing waves. Even from twenty feet below, the occasional spray flew up to mist her face. The sea was angry today, it seemed. Gray and roiling.

            Over the noise, Christine heard faint shouting, and turned over her shoulder to see the two brothers roughhousing on some boulders. Raoul had picked up a piece of driftwood and was stabbing at his brother, who—having begun his military sword training—was clearly letting Raoul win. Christine couldn’t hold back a chuckle when Raoul lost his balance anyways and tumbled off the rock, sprawling inelegantly as the wind was knocked out of him.

            Christine picked her way further inland, where the stones were larger and less flat. This was an unexplored region for the three of them, and she had to be careful not to step in the many unfamiliar crevices in the ground. As Christine crested a particularly large boulder, she noticed a flock of seagulls dancing around something on the ground before her.

            A treasure! Christine knew from experience that anything the birds found interesting was worth investigating. She picked up a small rock and hurled it in their direction, sending them squawking and fleeing in alarm.

            Their indignant cries still echoing in the air, Christine scrambled the rest of the way down the boulder and made her way over to the thing on the ground. From a distance it looked like driftwood—beige and mangled—but it was far too large to have been carried up to the top of the cliffs like this. Interest piqued, she drew closer.

            It was hard to determine exactly what it was she was looking at. Her next guess was some kind of carcass when she noticed the thing had hair. But it also seemed to be fraying—a net? A carcass caught in a net? But then, how would it have gotten all the way up here? It wasn’t until she saw the perfectly round shirt buttons and the five-fingered hand that she truly realized what lay before her.

            A body. A dead, human body.

* * *

            Philippe was in the middle of disarming his younger brother when he heard the scream. Alarmed, he dropped his guard, earning himself a stab of driftwood to the gut. Raoul shouted in victory.

            “Hush! Did you hear that?” Philippe asked, scanning the cliffs around them. The two boys stood silently on the windy plateau, listening. And then, there it was, barely audible over the rush of the waves and wind.

            “Philippe! Raoul!”

            Christine. Without a backward glance, Philippe took off, Raoul clattering along behind him. He regretted leaving his shoes by the beach—the stones cut his soles with every step. But Philippe knew Christine, and he knew that it took something truly awful to make her scream.

            Following the sound, the two brothers clambered over a ridge of boulders, and there she was. Christine stood completely still, every part of her frozen except for the curls writhing around her in the wind. Philippe jogged the last few steps to close the distance and followed her gaze to a strange, lumpy form on the ground several feet away.

            “What is it?” asked Raoul as he approached.

            Christine did not answer, and neither did Philippe. Because he hadn’t quite deciphered what it was he was looking at. Driftwood? An old sack? He took a cautious step forward. And then he saw the fingers.

            “Oh God,” he choked, stumbling back to the younger two children. “Oh God, it’s a person!”

            A terrible silence descended at the realization. And then it was broken when Raoul bent over and retched.

            The sound seemed to bring Christine out of whatever trance she had been in, and for the first time she met Philippe’s eyes. Her gaze was tearful and horrified. “What do we do?” she asked.

            Philippe didn’t have a good answer. He looked between Christine and his brother—who was still vomiting—before his eyes landed on the body. It was practically mummified, nothing more than ragged clothes stretched over yellowed skin stretched over jutting bones.

            Philippe was eighteen—a man. He had seen death before. He was training in the military, for God’s sake! But those bodies had been new. The wounds had been visceral, the blood had been fresh. Even mangled beyond recognition they still seemed human. They had been horrible to behold, but somehow…somehow this was worse.

            “Philippe?”

            Philippe shook himself and looked down at Christine, who met his gaze with wide gray eyes.

            “What do we do?” she repeated, her voice uncannily steady. Philippe took a deep breath. He was the adult here. He had to handle this.

            “We should go into town,” he said at last. “Get the police or the mortician. Perhaps someone will be able to identify him…” he risked a glance back at the corpse, withered beyond recognition, and was suddenly grateful he could not see its face. He pitied whomever would need to see it.

             “Take Raoul, I’ll stay,” Christine said.

            Philippe whipped back around to face her. “What? Why would you want to do that?”

            “I—I don’t know, it just…feels wrong to leave him,” she answered. “You need to get help, and Raoul needs to go home—”

            Philippe glanced back at his brother, who was hunched over on his knees in front of a puddle of vomit, white as a ghost.

            “—there’s no need for me to go as well,” Christine continued.

            Philippe didn’t like this. He was in charge, after all. He was responsible for all three of them, and leaving Christine behind with a dead body certainly felt like a violation of those responsibilities. But at the same time, she was right. Raoul looked ready to pass out, and without Christine staying behind, he might not be able to find the body when he came back with help. Gritting his teeth, he gave in.

            “Fine. Don’t move. Don’t touch it. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

            Christine nodded. Philippe made his way to Raoul’s side and helped him stand—the poor boy was practically catatonic. Home was the first stop then, it seemed. Drop off Raoul, get the mortician, alert the police. That was doable. That was fine. Everything would be fine.

            With a final worried glance back at Christine, Philippe herded Raoul over the boulders, and the body disappeared from sight.


	4. The Body

            For a while, Christine sat on the ridge, avoiding sight of her morbid companion and trying to guide her thoughts toward more pleasant things, like the setting sun or the crashing waves. But every time she set herself on a knew train of thought, it inevitably chugged back around to the corpse before her, and the circumstances under which it had come to be here.

            It was far too high to have been washed up. But if it was as old as it looked, how had no one yet discovered it? Shepherds wandered this land with fair frequency, why had none of them come across it? Eventually her eyes were drawn back, too. From her perch several yards away, Christine studied the man—his clothes, his position—searching for answers he could no longer speak aloud.

            Perhaps he had simply died here? The salty air could explain his withered figure. But even that did not account for everything. Christine’s mind churned over the possibilities, her curiosity growing unbearable.

            Not twenty minutes after the boys had left, she found herself standing up from the boulder and taking a step closer to the body. And another. Then another. Soon she was standing over it, a morbid fascination overtaking her fear and disgust.

            His clothes were frayed with age, but were also peppered with fresh tears and slashes. He had visible wounds, as well—scratches on his elbows and knees, a horribly broken ankle, abundant bruises. He even had what appeared to be a stab wound, and the ground beneath him was dark with dried blood.

            That was odd. It had rained rather heavily last night. If this body was as old as it seemed, surely that would have washed away by now. Christine frowned, even more intrigued now, and bent down to get a closer look. There was no smell, to her relief—but come to think of it, that too was strange. How could a body so clearly mummified and decaying be at once so freshly bled?

            Confounded, Christine found another rock to sit on, this one right at the body’s side as she contemplated his strange fate. Perhaps the mortician would have answers; or the gendarme.

            A breeze stirred just then, and the hem of Christine’s skirt wound its way around her ankle. Lost in thought, she reached down a hand to free it. And then she stopped.

            Because she remembered that she was wearing her bathing costume.

            The skirt of which was knee length.

            A sick feeling rose in her stomach as Christine forced her gaze down to her ankle. And then she screamed.

* * *

 

            Christine had been running for scarcely a minute when four figures materialized from the horizon.

            “Philippe!” she cried out in relief. “Raoul!”

            The group ahead shielded their eyes against the setting sun, and a moment later she was upon them, crashing into Philippe as she cried with relief.

            “Christine, I told you to wait!” Philippe protested, resisting her embrace. Christine just buried her face in his chest and sobbed. Her knees buckled beneath her, and Philippe caught her against him as she went limp and started sinking to the ground. “Whoa!” he cried at the sudden weight of her. “Are you alright?”

            Christine pulled away, shaking her head violently. It took her several steadying breaths to form words. “Philippe it—it _touched_ me!” she gasped, eyes filling with tears once more at the memory of it.

            “What did?” Philippe asked, frantically checking her over. “What’s going on?”

            Other voices began to murmur at the periphery of Christine’s awareness, but she was too shaken to pay them any mind.

            “The man—the body!” she choked. “It’s alive!”

            The murmuring hushed, and silence fell over the other two men. She felt their stares like hot pokers.

            “The body…is alive?” Philippe asked skeptically.

            Christine nodded, wiping fruitlessly at the tears on her cheeks. “I know how it sounds Philippe,” she sniffled, “but I saw it. I _felt_ it…” she couldn’t go on as another round of sobs wracked her body.

            The man behind her cleared his throat, and Christine jumped.

            “Now, now, young lady, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

            She turned to face him, an indignant scowl forming on her tearstained face. It was the gendarme.

            “Perhaps the explanation, _monsieur_ ,” she spat, “is that he is _alive_.” There was no shortage of cheek in the statement. Philippe pinched her elbow in warning, but Christine simply wrenched her arm away. Frowning, the gendarme glanced at the other man—whom Christine recognized as the mortician—and shrugged.

            “I suppose we’ll just have to see then, won’t we?”

            The man gestured up the path. Christine shuddered at the idea of returning into the clutches of that… _thing_ …but she was not alone this time. She had nothing to fear. Still, she clutched onto Philippe’s arm as the party continued toward the clifftop.

            Raoul—whom she was frankly surprised had returned—was muttering unsavory things under his breath, of which Christine caught “superstitious” and “silly”. If she had not been so latched onto Philippe, she might have turned around to slap him.

            And then they crested the boulders and the body was in view. It was once again motionless, in the same position she had left it in. Though she could swear his arm had not been that outstretched when they’d found him…

            “That’s a dead man if I’ve ever seen one,” the gendarme announced when they arrived, jolting Christine out of her thoughts. “Wouldn’t you agree, Garson?”

            The mortician looked up at the mention of his name, nearly dropping the body board he was carrying. “Well, yes,” he answered. “I’ve seen worse, but…certainly not living.”

            From behind her, Christine heard Raoul whisper, “told you so.” She stomped on his foot. He swore in pain, hopping backwards and making a very satisfying fuss.

            The gendarme turned back to Christine with a too-wide smile. “See girlie? Nothing to worry your pretty head about. You must be reading too many ghost stories!” he said, patting her hair. She scowled at him but said nothing. She knew this type of men, and knew it would take far more than words to make him see sense.

            Out of the corner of her eye, Christine saw the mortician crouch next to the body, and her mouth went dry as she remembered foolishly doing the same. She watched on horrified as he examined it, giving the skin of its arms a few firm prods before standing up and nodding.

            “Dead and gone,” he confirmed. “For a while, it seems. His connective tissue is in surprisingly good shape, though, which is good news for moving him. Don’t want any limbs falling off in transport.” The mortician laughed at his own remark, which no one else seemed to find humorous. He cleared his throat in the silence that followed. “Come on boys, help me load him up.”

            Reluctantly, Christine released her hold on Philippe and allowed him to join the gendarme and the mortician on either side of the body. After some murmured instructions, the three of them lifted it swiftly onto the board.

            A strong odor of decay arose at the movement, and Christine had to look away to keep from vomiting. She wished not for the first time that she was not wearing her bathing costume; with a longer skirt, she might have been able to shield her nose. Raoul, she noticed with no great surprise, was gagging several feet away.

            “Ready, lift!”

            Christine glanced back as the men heaved the board up to their shoulders. One of them let out a loud grunt.

            “Too much for you, Serge?” the mortician teased brightly as they adjusted the weight for a moment. “The man hardly weighs a feather.”

            “Wasn’t me,” the gendarme said indignantly.

            The mortician turned to Philippe, playfully raising a brow. “Well it surely wasn’t this sturdy young man.”

            Philippe just shook his head, shrugging.

            “Can we move along please?” Raoul called hoarsely from where he crouched several feet away.

            The mortician glanced at him and chuckled. “I don’t blame you son. This fellow isn’t exactly fit for an open casket.” When the mortician was finished laughing at his own joke again, he looked to his compatriots with a disturbingly genuine grin. “Onward, then! Keep him level!”

            For a long while the journey into town was uneventful. Christine kept to herself, still shaken but coming to the slow realization that her encounter must have been the result of an overactive imagination. Raoul trailed even further behind, shirt pulled up over his nose and looking pointedly at the ground.

            “Watch your step!” Philippe called, as they reached a spot where the path dipped sharply. The men had to consider for a moment how best to navigate without spilling their cargo, eventually deciding to arrange themselves horizontally and take it all at once.

            “One, two, three,” the mortician called, and the men stepped down in synch, eliciting from one of them another wheezing grunt.

            “Good heavens, Serge, you need to get into shape,” the mortician teased again in that infuriating way of his. “You’re meant to be the defender of our town!”

            “It wasn’t me!” the gendarme insisted, red in the face—but not, it seemed, with effort.

            The mortician chuckled brightly. “Well if it’s not me, and it’s not the boy, then who is it, the dead body?”

            Christine felt the sudden weight of three stares as the men fell into awkward silence.

            Behind her, in his effort to ignore his surroundings, Raoul had remained unaware that the procession had paused at the tricky terrain. Next thing Christine knew, the boy had walked right into her, and she barely managed to catch herself. Raoul himself, however, could not regain his balance, and fell down the dip and into his brother. There was a cacophony of shouting and movement, and then the body hit the ground.

            The sound was horrendous. Not the wet thud of the impact, though that was sickening as well. What was truly horrifying was the scream that followed.

            “ _No!”_

It was a plea, an exclamation, and a feral scream of pain.

            And it had come from the corpse.

* * *

            Chaos erupted around Christine, but she could not quite seem to perceive it. Her ears rang, her vision blurred, even her skin seemed to go dead and unfeeling as cold sweat pooled on the back of her neck. She took in a ragged breath as the full understanding of what had just happened hit her.

            And then the world spun back into motion again.

            Raoul screamed, his face blanching white. The gendarme didn’t look much better as he scrambled backwards. Philippe and the mortician—who had still been holding the board—dropped it simultaneously, practically running into each other as they scrambled away from the body—the _man_ —in front of them.

            “H-how is that possible?” the gendarme stuttered.

            The mortician shook his head, for once looking appropriately terrified. “It isn’t!”

            The man let out another bloodcurdling scream—no words this time, just pain and panic as he flailed out and brushed Christine’s leg.

            His touch had terrified her on the ridge—those cold, papery fingers on her ankle. The idea that this _corpse_ could be anything but had been a sickening one. But now, there was no denying it. Now, surrounded by allies and gazing upon him as he thrashed desperately, Christine was not afraid. She did not see a reanimated corpse before her, but a man in pain and in need.

            “Do something!” Christine gasped, finding her voice.

            Philippe whipped around to face her, wide-eyed and sweating. “ _What_?”

            “Help him!”

            Philippe gave her a powerless look, and in that moment, he was the most lost she had ever seen him. Something in her sunk at the sight of it. He had disappointed her.

            The withered man screamed again just then, and Christine found herself moving towards his side.

            “Hush!” she pleaded, kneeling over him. She meant to be comforting, but her bedside manner was doubtlessly blunted by the circumstances. The man simply screamed again, his moans this time devolving into unintelligible mumbling that could have just as easily been gibberish as another language.

            “French, sir! Do you speak French?” Christine entreated. She tried again in her native tongue. “Swedish?” There was no response, just another round of weak moans she could make no sense of.

            He was no prettier of a sight to behold up close. The smell of death that clung to him was stirred up with every jerky motion, and the blood that crusted his frontside stained her hands as she tried to restrain him. It was hard to tell if he was even fully conscious—his eyes were lost in unfathomably deep sockets and swollen mostly shut. The rest of him fared no better—he was little more than papery skin stretched over too-long bones. But he was alive. And if they didn’t do something soon, he wouldn’t stay that way for long.

            “We need the doctor,” she announced, still crouching by the man and trying to control his thrashing. The men did not seem to hear her. A glance over her shoulder explained why—the mortician was praying, Raoul had fainted, the gendarme was cowering behind a boulder, and Philippe had frozen wide-eyed in the middle of the path. Christine growled. Men were useless.

            “The doctor!” she shouted. This time she got their attention.

            Philippe seemed to come out of his trance. “Send Raoul,” he suggested brilliantly, “he’s no use to us here.”

            It took a fair amount of prodding to rouse the boy, and all the while Christine still did her best to restrain the thrashing man. A moment’s explanation was all that was necessary to convince Raoul to leave the scene and run into town, clearly relieved to be escaping the vicinity of the body.

            “What now?” the gendarme asked helplessly as Raoul absconded into the distance.

            “He won’t make it into town,” Christine answered. The man had gone still under her grip, whatever burst of energy that had awoken in him clearly spent. “We need to get him somewhere warm. And clean, for the doctor.”

            “Like what?” the mortician sputtered. “The only structure for half a mile is a barn!”

            Christine winced. “Not…not the only one.”

            Philippe whipped his head around to look at her, eyebrows raised. But there weren’t any other options. With a sigh and a silent plea for her father’s forgiveness, Christine stood and led the men toward her house.


	5. The Boy

            “Several blunt force injuries, lacerations, a concussion, three fractured ribs, a broken ankle, and a stab wound with some fairly significant blood loss. It’s really a wonder the lad is still alive.”

            Doctor Bonheur stood in the Daaes’ living room, wiping off his hands on a borrowed kitchen towel. The man adjusted his glasses, leaving behind a rust-colored fingerprint on one lens. “It’s especially impressive considering he doesn’t seem to have had a decent meal in six months.”

            Gustave Daae stood against the back of the sofa, fiddling with his ring. “Is he going to make it, then?” he asked without looking up.

            The doctor sighed. “He’s made it this long,” he offered. “But he’s in pretty bad shape. I’d say if he makes it through the night, he has a fairly good chance of pulling through.”

            “What can we do for him?”

            Bonheur shrugged. “Keep him warm. Get him hydrated. Try not to let him move. I can’t imagine he’ll be terribly responsive for the next few days, but he’s had a few episodes of consciousness, if the children are to be believed.”

            Christine scowled from where she sat on the stairs. She wasn’t eavesdropping—not exactly. It was just that no one knew she was there. It wasn’t like she enjoyed snooping, but none of the adults would tell her anything, and she had been repeatedly banished from the bustling kitchen after trying to get a look for herself. Following her latest eviction, she had crept from her room to the bottom step and perched out of sight behind the railing, where she watched as the evening’s frantic proceedings came to a close.

            The gendarme and the mortician had vanished practically upon arrival, scurrying away from the scene the moment their cargo hit the kitchen table. Philippe had left a few hours later, after assisting the doctor and Christine’s father in stabilizing the man. He had not been joined by his brother, however—Raoul still lingered in Christine’s bed, having crawled upstairs and fallen asleep the moment he’d returned with the doctor.

            “I’ll be back tomorrow to follow up,” Bonheur said. “Send for me if anything dramatic happens in the meantime. But keep in mind, there’s not much I can do at this stage. If he dies, he dies.”

            Christine’s father nodded solemnly.

            The men exchanged goodnights, and Christine watched the doctor pack up his supplies and leave hastily, avoiding eye contact with her father.

            Christine’s father looked at the clock and sighed, running a hand through his hair. He paused and glanced up at his palm, which was sticky and dark with what Christine assumed was the stranger’s blood. With another sigh he moved back toward the kitchen and their catatonic guest to run his hand under the sink.

            Christine took the opportunity to leave her hiding spot, making as much noise as possible on the stairs to make it seem as if she was only now coming down. Her father looked up and gave a thin smile.

            “It’s late. You should be sleeping.”

            Christine shrugged and continued into the kitchen. “I don’t think I can.”

            Gustave gave a humorless laugh. “No, me neither.”

            Christine pushed past him as he searched for a clean towel to dry his hands, moving toward the stove. “Peppermint or chamomile?”

            “Chamomile,” her father replied, something in his voice already relaxing at the notion of a cup of tea.

            Christine boiled the kettle as her father did what he could to clean up—folding clean towels and piling the dirty ones under the table. The amount of red staining that pile was alarming.

            The kitchen looked like a warzone; pots and pans stood upended on the counter to dry and utensils were strewn everywhere, substitutes for whatever tools the doctor had not had time to pack. So different from the last time death visited this house—all sudden and chaotic where her mother’s decline had been a slow and inevitable affair.

            Perhaps this time there would be a different outcome.

            When the tea was made, and the mess was somewhat more contained, the two of them settled onto the sofa under a knitted blanket. It was far too warm for a blanket that thick, but the familiar weight gave them much-needed comfort as they finally allowed their minds to catch up with the evening’s proceedings. Quietly, they sipped their tea and stared into the middle distance, overwhelmed and exhausted.

            “Are you alright?” Christine’s father asked after a while.

            Christine paused. Any other day she would have brushed him off, told him it wasn’t his problem. It became habit, after her mother died, to be the illusion of strength her father so desperately needed to anchor himself to. But it was not her father who had stumbled upon what had looked like a corpse. It was not her father whom that body had grabbed.

            “I don’t know,” she answered honestly after a long pause. “Unsettled, I suppose.”

            Her father nodded, still staring ahead. “Me too.”

            “Are you upset? That I brought him here?”

            “No, Christine. Of course not,” he assured, turning to her. “You saved his life.”

            _Not yet,_ she thought, remembering the doctor’s grim words. But she didn’t argue. Instead she cast a glance over her shoulder at the man lying in her kitchen, too weak to be moved to a bed. He was enveloped in bandages, but even with the extra bulk he was frighteningly skinny—more like a withered old man than someone so young.

            She had hardly believed her eavesdropping ears when Bonheur had estimated the boy’s age. Twenty. _Twenty_. Perhaps even less, he’d said. Barely out of adolescence…that could be her or Raoul or Philippe on that table just as easily. The thought of the circumstances he must have endured to end up in such a state—Christine felt the tea in her stomach roil.

            Wherever the boy was from, it had to be near hell. Among his fresh wounds and scrapes she saw old scars piled one on top of the other—a timeline of abuse as easy to read as a children’s book. Was whoever carved them the perpetrator behind the recent injuries? Or had this boy been passed from unkind hands to crueler ones?

            Christine forced her gaze to return forward, putting the boy’s gruesome injuries out of her mind. There was no point in dwelling on his past, not when so much had to be done to ensure his future.

            “Christine.”

            Christine jolted out of her thoughts at the sound of her father’s voice, sloshing a few drops of tea out of her cup.

            “You’re dozing off, angel. Get some sleep.”

            Christine shook the droplets of spilled tea off the blanket. “I’m fine,” she protested, but a massive yawn undermined her words.

            “Go on,” her father insisted. “I’ll sleep down here and keep an eye on him until morning.”

            Christine yawned again, realizing the effort was futile. “Alright. Goodnight, Papa.”

            “Goodnight.”

* * *

 

            When Gustave woke the next morning to sunlight streaming through the windows, immediately his heart fell. It was dawn. He had slept through the night. And the boy had not stirred.

            Gustave was a notoriously light sleeper. Rain, a clock ticking, a crackling fire, all of it could prevent him from a restful night’s sleep. He was even awoken by his own snoring every now and again. So he knew that if the boy had woken, had stirred, had made any noise at all, he would have heard it. But he hadn’t. And so, with melancholy resignation, he realized that the boy must be dead.

            He stretched as he unfolded himself from the sofa, his shoulders cramped from the odd position he’d slept in. Standing, he sent a glance over the back of the couch into the kitchen, and it seemed his suspicions were confirmed. The boy’s body was utterly still, pale, and in the exact same position in which he had started the night. With a heavy sigh, Gustave stepped around the sofa and approached the boy’s side.

            A tiny gasp. Barely audible, a rasping sound like a fingertip stroking course fabric. The boy’s chest rose and fell shallowly, the movement hardly visible. But as Gustave stepped closer, he realized his eyes were not deceiving him. He saw it. He heard it. The boy was alive.

            Excitedly, Gustave moved in to take the boy’s pulse. The child looked gray and corpselike, but then, he had since the moment they’d found him. Had anything changed? Delicately, Gustave turned the boy’s bandaged arm into position and placed his fingers on the boy’s bare wrist.

            He recoiled immediately, jerking back so hard he collided with the sink, sending a dish careening to the floor, where it shattered. Gustave’s breaths came in ragged gasps as he struggled to fight down a wave of nausea.

            The boy’s skin…he knew that waxy, clay-like texture. He clutched the edge of the sink behind him as the memories surged forth of the last time he had felt that skin—holding his wife’s hand, hours before her death. Her skin. A cadaver’s skin.

            Breathing heavily, Gustave squeezed his eyes shut against the memories, instead calling to mind the image of Elsa in her bridal gown, smiling and full of vitality, her hand warm in his as they danced together on their wedding night. It was the image he always relied upon when the horrors of her last days plagued him. It always succeeded in banishing the memory of those sunken cheeks and distant eyes.

            It worked this time, too. It took a while longer, as it naturally would after such a visceral reminder, but a minute or two later Gustave’s breath steadied, and his nausea receded.

            This was not his wife. This was not a corpse. This was just a boy. A stranger, whose death—though sad—would mean nothing to them. This was not Elsa.

            This was not Elsa.

            Swallowing once more against the dregs of nausea, Gustave blinked open his eyes and looked over the boy. Gray, bloodless, limp. He looked worse than the night before, if that was possible. The only difference was that now his wounds were bandaged.

            Which was to say, his entire body was bandaged. The boy was practically mummified; hands, face, hip, ankle, ribs, all swathed in gauze. He could have been fully clothed by the amount of fabric on him—though in truth, the only clothes he wore were a pair of cotton shorts, donated by Gustave himself. Twice as wide as the boy’s hips, they were cinched at the waist with a drawstring, the wide pant legs falling limply to his bandaged knees.

            There was a spot of blood on those shorts, Gustave realized as his eyes skimmed over the boy’s body. Near the waistband, atop his hip. Where the stab wound had been.

            Gustave swallowed. That could be bad. That could be very bad. But how would he know unless he gathered the right information? Flexing his fingers nervously, Gustave steeled himself for another try at taking the boy’s pulse.

            Baby steps, he decided, reaching out for the boy’s bandaged shoulder. For a moment, the fabric seemed waxy and stiff under his fingers, but he forced the ghostly sensation away. It was just a shoulder. A living shoulder. Gustave focused on the weave of the gauze under his hand, the boy’s wiry muscle, his prominent bones. As Gustave’s touch lingered, soon enough a subtle warmth ascended into his fingers: the boy’s body heat. A hint of vitality. A sign of life.

            Gustave let out an alleviated sigh. Not a corpse.

            Feeling more confident now, Gustave moved his hand to the boy’s bare wrist. The sensation was still unsettling, but it triggered no images of his wife’s withered body this time, and he managed to count the boy’s pulse.

            Emboldened by his success, Gustave moved on to take the boy’s temperature with the thermometer Doctor Bonheur had left behind for that purpose.

            “Call for me if it gets over—”

            “A hundred and one,” Gustave had finished for him. “We’ve been through this before.”

            The doctor had smiled awkwardly at the reminder and remained silent for the rest of the examination.

            The boy’s temperature was borderline. Not quite normal, but nowhere near high enough to alert Bonhuer. It would be wise to mention it when he returned though, Gustave noted, especially if his wound kept bleeding.

            When he had sterilized the thermometer as instructed, by dipping it into boiling water, Gustave realized there was nothing much else he could do. He set the thermometer on the edge of the sink and turned to face the boy occupying his kitchen table.

            How had this happened, he wondered not for the first time. What strange winds of providence had blown this boy to their doorstep, and why?

            “Where have you come from?” he mused aloud.

            A voice answered from behind him. “Just upstairs.”

            Gustave spun, startled, to face his daughter, still in her nightgown and standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

            “Oh. Christine,” he breathed, relieved. “What are you doing up so early?” He threw a glance to the clock on the mantle; 7:08. “After yesterday’s ordeal I would have thought you’d want to—”

            “Raoul pushed me out of bed.”

            Gustave let out a snort of laughter. “Oh, did he now?”

            “It wasn’t his fault,” she clarified. “He was dreaming.”

            Gustave put on a mischievous grin, grateful for the diversion his daughter had so unknowingly just provided. “Dreaming or not, no one treats my daughter with such disrespect!” he boomed, puffing out his chest. “I’d better go up there and give him a talking to!”

            Gustave made a show of heading toward the stairs, prompting a shriek of protest from Christine.

            “No, no! Don’t do that! Papa, stop!”

            “I have no choice!” Gustave announced as Christine—who was now giggling too—attempted to block his path.

            “Papa!”

            Laughing, Gustave raised his hands in surrender, ending the charade and his daughter’s torment. Christine frowned petulantly at him, but a tousle of her hair was enough to return a smile to her lips.

            “No, I’m only joking,” he sighed, returning to the kitchen and setting the kettle on the stove. “The two of you barely fit on that mattress anymore. I can hardly fault him for an inevitability.”

            Christine’s face remained bright, but Gustave felt his smile fall at his own bittersweet words. His daughter was growing up. Already she approached him in height, and in mere months she’d turn fifteen. The hours of her childhood were slipping through his fingers like water, and what had once seemed like a vast unknowable ocean had somehow evaporated without him noticing, until he was left grasping at a tiny trickle.

            “Can you fault him for farting all night?” Christine muttered, setting out plates for breakfast.

            Gustave burst into a loud guffaw.

* * *

 

            Raoul’s cup had long gone cold by the time he finally made it downstairs. Christine tossed it out and made him a fresh one, but it turned out she needn’t have bothered. He didn’t touch this one, either. The two of them sat in stools on either side of the sink—the only surface in the kitchen now that the table was occupied by a prone stranger. Raoul leaned on the basin, tapping his teaspoon against his mug and staring into the middle distance.

            “Should I go on and walk you home, Raoul?” Christine’s father asked into the silence.

            Raoul paused his spoon and glanced up, but his eyes did not focus. “Philippe will come for me,” he said flatly. Christine shot him a skeptical glance, which she then turned on her father. Gustave only shrugged, and the silence resumed, peppered only by Raoul’s _tap-tap-tapping._

            Christine tried her best to put the situation aside and enjoy her breakfast, but it was no easy feat between the tension in the room and the comatose stranger on her kitchen table. Not to mention Raoul’s incessant tapping. Eventually she had to rise and take the utensil from him, as the sound was about to drive her mad. Raoul barely seemed to notice, just kept on tapping noiselessly with his fingertips.

            Sure enough, Philippe arrived barely a half hour later. He knocked just as the mantle clock struck ten, causing all three occupants of the room to jump off their seats. Christine ‘s father answered the door, and she overheard him speaking to Philippe in low tones.

            “He’s in a bit of a state,” Gustave admitted. “Frankly, I don’t blame him after yesterday, but…well I think he’s a bit shell-shocked, is all.”

            Christine saw Philippe nod absently, his eyes betraying a trace of the exhausted emptiness present in Raoul’s. “It won’t be the first time,” he assured. “My brother has a delicate psyche.”

            With that, Christine’s father stepped aside, allowing Philippe to enter. He gave a terse smile as he pushed past Christine into the kitchen, where he tried his best to rouse his brother. Raoul seemed to perk up a bit at the sound of Philippe’s voice, but was far from his usual rowdy energy. His eyes were still bleary as his brother led him to the door.

            As they exited, Philippe turned back belatedly to wave goodbye. Just as he did so, a gust of wind snatched the door from his grip, and it swung shut with a slam, obscuring the two young men from view.

            And with that, they were alone. Barricaded from the rest of the world by a simple breeze, in a house that suddenly seemed darker. Uneasy, and unsure, Christine and her father exchanged glances, heavy with the knowledge that it was just the three of them now. Just Christine, her father, and their anonymous guest.


End file.
